Barnett's book is an easy and enjoyable-to-read text on a subject that could easily become dry and uninteresting. Well-written and thought provoking, Barnett has done a good job of helping the reader come into the historical situation of first-century Jews and Jesus. He gives insightful commentary and well documented evidence of the atrocious behavior of King Herod, known in the Gospels as the killer of the Bethlehem infants. After reading Barnett's analysis one realizes Herod was totally capable of such a travesty. He also gives a good background to the parables of Christ, showing how Jesus' choice of topics blended well with the his small-town rural background.

Well done and I think, a quick read. Should be helpful to anyone wanting to understand the historical background of the New Testament more fully.

I am taking a mathematics class using this book. The book is difficult to use as a reference or learning tool if you have not math oriented. The only reason why I am able to complete the problems is because I have a good instructor.

I recommend this book in a heartbeat to anyone taking an introductory college-level mathematics course. I've used this book in courses that I've taught and students love it! Yes, there is a lot of material, but no, who says you have to read every page? It is also a great mathematics refresher! Furthermore, it covers many aspects of the mathematics of finance.

I sinmply loved the flow of this text! It mader so much sense to me the way the book went from one concept to the other! Highly recommended if you want to really learn and not "slide" through.

I am a college student and had the unfortunete experience to have to use this utterly useless textbook for two different courses--a finite math and a calculus course. The text is very technical and wordy, with terrible examples not explaining steps but rather using the authors 'ego-boosting' terms such as 'obvioulsy', 'of course' and 'simply' -- wrongly assuming that drawn out text taught the student something. Do not buy this book if you are looking to learn calc--there has got to be something better.

I also had this book for two math classes and found it to be pretty good, probably one of the better text books I've had. It explained things better than my teachers did! In all fairness, I knew all the math before the calculus part so I only really read the book in an in-depth manner the last 3 or 4 chapters. Anyway, just a different opinion.

I am currently enrolled In a distanced learning college and was sent this book.The book Is hard to figure out and the problems give you no pretense on who to solve them go with a different book.

This text isn't awful, but it does jump into things a bit quickly for someone who hasn't taken algebra for about a decade. If you need to use this text as part of a college program, I definitely recommend "Forgotten Algebra", ISBN 0812019423 as a refresher (or suppliment) before tackling this text. It will be well worth the extra [money] spent!

College Algebra is well written. The concepts of algebra are thoroughly explained and illustrated with examples. Answers to half the problems are included in the back of the book.